Day 1,686 - The One Where The Principal Called Home

February has been a busy month. A very busy month. We’ve had three birthdays, a Super Bowl, a Super Bowl parade, a family-wide case of food poisoning, other random illnesses, ridiculously cold temperatures, incredibly warm temperatures (for February), and a nice little eye infection for yours truly. See, big month.

Obviously, with all that has been going on, there’s certainly a few things here and there that I’ve missed. However, instead of rehashing all of that past stuff, I’d rather talk about today and me receiving a phone call from Ellie’s principal.

For the record, it’s generally not a good thing to get a phone call from your child’s principal. It either means that your kid has been royally misbehaving or perhaps they’ve been injured in some kind of dramatic playground accident. On this occasion though, it was none of the above.

Now, something that you need to know about me is that I don’t normally answer phone calls from numbers I don’t recognize if I’m out and about. If I’m home, then I will almost always answer those calls in an attempt to mess with the person on the other end wanting to buy my home or help me refinance my nonexistent loans. My favorite had to be the time I kept someone on the line for 20 minutes while they had a rooster crowing in the background. Today though was one of those times when I was out and about doing some grocery shopping with Ethan. Don’t ask me why I answered the phone but the moral of the story is that I did.

Imagine my surprise when the voice on the other end said, “Hi Mr. Holt. This is Mrs. Williams, the principal of Fox Hill and I have Eleanor here with me on speaker phone.” At this point, it’s pretty safe to say that the only thing running through my mind was something along the lines of “What in the world is going on?”.

Then, Mrs. Williams proceeded to proudly declare that Ellie had been nominated for a Positive Office Referral by her teacher, Mrs. Albaugh. She was singled out due to her love for learning specifically as well as for having a sweet and fun attitude. Ellie also received commendations for showing positive behaviors such as hard work, a positive attitude, and being responsible. In Mrs. Williams exact words, she wished that I could have seen Ellie beaming proudly as she sat there in her office listening to our whole conversation on speaker phone.

Honestly, even though I had to hear these words in the aisles of Hy-Vee rather than in person, I couldn’t have been more proud of Ellie. For one thing, it’s pretty cool to see that her teachers are seeing the same great traits in her that Bethany and I see in her. For another, Ellie thrives on positive affirmation so I know this is going to really encourage her and stick with her for a long time. Not too bad for the first phone call home from the principal, right?

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